We admit it: Fantasy shows and movies make us anxious. All those characters and worlds! The dragons! We’d rather relax with a simple episode of Breaking Bad. So would we like The Dragon Prince, Netflix’s newest animated series?

Opening Shot: A beautifully-animated overview of how the land of Xadia gets its magic: The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Sky, the Earth and the Ocean. But there is also a force called Dark Magic, which takes the “essence” of magical creatures to unleash “dark power”.

The Gist: The narration goes on to explain that because the humans unleashed Dark Magic, the continent has been split between Xandia and the human lands for ages. But a war began brewing as the humans advanced towards Xandia, with the humans thwarting Xandia’s dragon king Thunder, and destroying Thunder’s dragon prince.

We cut to a castle in the human lands. A scout encounters a moonshadow elf, Xandia’s most deadly assassins, and somehow escapes. When the scout reports it to the kingdom’s military chief, Lord Viren (Jason Simpson), he reports it to King Harrow (Luc Rodrique).

Photo: Netflix

We then see two kids: Ezran (Sasha Rojen), who likes stealing baked goods, and Callum (Jack De Sena), who is being trained in the art of jousting by Viren’s son Soren (Jesse Inocalla). Soren seems to be uninterested in teaching his student, who is Harrow’s son (actually his stepson, as Soren always seems to point out). Callum and Ezran are brothers, and they seem to chafe against the fact that they’re the kings’ sons.

With the moonshadow elves about to attack, Soren sets out to find their secret camp. The elf that was discovered, Rayla (Paula Burrows), comes back to the camp and admits she let the scout go. She’s upbraided for letting the humans know that they’re on the attack.

Photo: Netflix

Our Take:The Dragon Prince is produced by Giancarlo Volpe, best known for Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Mike Tyson Mysteries. It’s got all the earmarks of a traditional animated fantasy series: detailed animation that vaguely evokes old-fashioned Japanese anime, a complex backstory that leads to the excessive need for exposition by narration, and character names that are confusing to keep track of (maybe you figured out by now that I’m not exactly a fantasy fan).

But The Dragon Prince has a modern sensibility to it, as evidenced by dialogue with a sense of humor. Sure, many shows of this ilk have a sense of humor, but for some reason this one has it more than others. People talk to each other like real people, not in stilted dialogue, and characters like the dedicated but arrogant Soren and his bookish sister Claudia (Raquel Belmonte) come alive without much screen time.

Photo: Netflix

The idea behind this is show is that eventually Ezran and Callum are supposed to team with Rayla to defeat the forces of Dark Magic. But the show will take its sweet time getting there. So the fact that the characters are entertaining, even to fantasy-averse people like us, is a plus.

What Age Group Is This For?: This is definitely in the 10-and-up category, maybe even more for 12-and-up.

Parting Shot: “You didn’t kill him, but you killed us!” — Runaan (Jonathan Holmes) lectures Rayla for letting the scout live and revealing that they’re on the attack.

Most Pilot-y Line: Why can’t someone in one of these shows be called “Bob” or “Roger”? And also, get off our lawn!

Our Call: STREAM IT. It may be a tough sell to those who don’t like fantasy, but for those who do, the amazing animation and fun characters will hook them in immediately.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.